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Asatru
Red River Heathen Association (Ásatrú) The relationship between the Ascomanni lifestyle and the Ásatrú religion, the worship of the old Norse Aesir , is complicated and nuanced. While there is certainly a wide intersection between the two, people who practice the Norse lifestyle to a greater or lesser degree and those who follow the Aesir, there are plenty of Ascomanni who are Lutheran , Catholic , non-religious or just sort of generally spiritual. There's even a few fringe 'Crystal Raiders' who have tried to build an actual faith around the gods of the Neil the Ork Barbarian franchise, using the Ásatrú as a template, although they are considered embarrassments by both groups. Likewise the majority of Ásatrúar are not necessarily Ascomanni, most are perfectly mainstream corporate employees or laborers, often focusing on the Ásatrú emphasis on family loyalty, although the faith also has fairly strong roots in the Craftpunk, Biodynamic and PvR communities as well. *'Affiliation: 'Ásatrú communities in solidarity with the Vinlandr Thing (Kensington Kindred). Beliefs The name Ásatrú is a modern portmanteau of of the Old Norse terms "áss" (genitive, Ase, ie a deity) and "trú" (faithfulness) together. The term is often applied to all believers in old Norse deities, although those who follow the rival patheon of the Vanir should be known as Vanatrú, and those Trolls who venerate the Giants of Norse Myth (a not inconsiderable segment of believers) are more properly known as Jötuntrú. The Ásatrú are a stubbornly independent bunch and it really is more of a loose gathering of independent groups with similar beliefs than any kind of unified religion, more akin to the Free Churches than, say, the Catholic Church. They don’t even agree on what to call themselves. Ásatrú, Vanatrú, Heathens, Forn Sed, the Elder Troth, Asetro, Vor Sir, Odinism are just some of the more commonly used names for the resurrected faith in the Norse gods. Just don't call them 'Neopagan', they drekkin' hate that. The primary, or at least best-known, pantheon from myth is the Aesir, warrior gods who embody natural forces and social roles and live in the world of Asgard, which contains Valhalla, the highest of the Norse afterlives. The Aesir include most of the best known gods, Odinn, the king of the gods, Thor, the Thunder God and patron of warriors, Tyr, god of justice and sacrifice, Loki, the half-giant trickster, Frigga, the Mother of the Gods, Baldur, who died and will come again and others. These are the ones of whom the most stories survive about and the ones we know the most about. The Aesir have a rival pantheon in Norse myth, the Vanir, fertility and nature gods of whom less survives. The only well-known Vanir are the ones who came to live with the Aesir after a war between the two pantheons, Njord, god of sailors and the sea, and his twin children, Freyr, god of fertility and the harvest and Freya, goddess of love and battle. The Vanir tend to be worshiped more by farmers and hippies. The Jötunn, the Giants, are considered to be the enemies of the gods in the myths, but have gained a following since the Awakening among the Jötuntrú, Trolls who model themselves on these great beings. These included the wise Utgard-Loki (no relation), Laufrey, the father of Loki (its complicated), Mist-Calf the warrior (who is the special patron of John Mist Calf, leader of the Heathens go-gang), AEgir, the sea giant, and others. The cosmology of the old Norse was the Nine Worlds, nine planes of existence tied together by the World Tree Yggdrasil. These worlds (often equated with the Metaplanes in modern theology) are grouped into three groups, the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds. While there isn't a hard count, in modern reckoning the Upper worlds are usually taken to be: Asgard, home of the Aesir, Vanaheim, home of the Vanir and Alfheim, home of the Light Elves (Elves). The Middle worlds are usually figured to be Midgard, the Mortal World, Jotunheim, the ice world of the giants and Muspellheim, the fire world. The Lower worlds are then Trollheim, world of trolls, Nidavellir, the world of Dwarves and Niflheim, world of the dead. The Afterlives of the Norse mythos are many and varied, depending on who you are, who you follow and how you die, you can end up in a astonishing number of different places in their cosmology. Including, but not limited to: Valhalla in Asgard where those who bravely died in battle feast until Ragnarok, Odinn's personal army, Freyr's hall in Alfheim where his followers are gathered, the gloomy Niflheim where those who die of old age and sickness rest, the serpent-filled hall of Nastrond, set aside for punishment of the worst and others. Rites and Practices There's nothing like a unified practice of Ásatrú, but the religion's deities and spirits are often honored in sacrificial rites known as blóts in which food and libations are offered to them. These are often accompanied by symbel, the act of ceremonially toasting the gods with an alcoholic beverage. Locally, the four main blót each year are: Jólablót (Yule-blót) at winter solstice in honor of the goddess Freyja, Sigurblót (Victory-blót) held in the spring in honor of the god Freyr, Þingblót (Þing/assembly-blót) on Summer solstice held in honor of the laws, the Þing and human society, and Veturnáttablót (Winter-nights-blót) held on the first day of winter. Veturnáttablót is in honor of Óðinn, the god of the gods. They also practice one other feast, a great mid-winter feast named Þorrablót, in honour of Thor. A congregation of Ásatrúar is generally referred to as Hearth or Kindred, who gather in the Hof (temple), which could be something as humble as somebody's living room or as grand as the Hof Hjemkomst , the largest Heathen Temple in the region. A Hof is tended to by a Goði (plural Goðar), a priest, who generally owns the property the hof sits on. Modern Ásatrúar have created a list of Nine Noble Virtues: Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance and Perseverance. The family is greatly valued and honored. One of the features of the Norse world-view is the finiteness of all things. The battle end of the world, Ragnarok in their prophesies will end the gods and monsters, even the dead die in this last battle, to clear the way for a new world. Hence the saying "Cattle Die, Kinsmen Die, Gods Die, only the fame of a man's deeds lives forever". History There's a couple of different versions of the origins of the Ásatrú. True believers will maintain that they are upholding a tradition that reaches back before the beginning of written history. Another version says the pagan ways died out in the 1300's and that the modern incarnation of the Ásatrú dates back to 1972, when a poet and his friends formed the first modern hof in Iceland (now the Thule Protectorate). It remained a minor faith, almost a curiosity, through the rest of the twentieth and the first years of the twenty-first century. Then the Awakening happened, and the faith, like so many lost and ancestral ways, experienced a significant increase and is now a mainstream religion in the Scandinavian countries and the rest of the Baltic region. The local community coalesced around the recreated viking ship ''Hjemkomst, ''which survived the wrath of the rising Red River when very little else did. Red River Ásatrúar took this as a sign from their gods. They supported the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County to save the ship from destruction by the Laestadian Lutheran Church. Their victory in saving the Ship of the Gods did not mean that they had avoided the troubles of the Awakening. Specifically the dilemma that struck the community was over magic. See, there were two different schools of thought on the subject when it turned out magic was verifiable and repeatable. On the one hand, while they dislike the term 'neopagan', a lot of the pre-Awakening Ásatrúar came out of that community, from 'witchcraft' culture, and brought a lot of magical practice with them when they did, leading to a lot of 'seidr' (reading signs) and 'galdr' (rune-casting) being made a prominent part of the tradition. On the other hand, the new Ásatrúar tended to be from a more proto-Ascomanni, 'Lifestyle Vikings' direction, and to the Old Norse magic was 'Argr' or 'unmanly' (unworthy, taboo). Its no accident that a lot of the early Ergi were rebelling against conservative Ásatrúar families. Like most North American Hofs, the Hof Hjemkomst cut off contact with the main temple in Iceland, Hof Ásatrúarfélagið in the mid-sixties when Ásatrúarfélagið was revealed to have ties to the terrorist organization Winternight and helped form the North American association of Ásatrú, the "Vinlandr Thing" as part of the Kensington Kindred, which covers most of the upper midwest. 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